Deadly Games

She's shrinking

and she's shrinking

and she's shrinking

until she's barely there at all anymore.

He's cutting

and he's cutting

and he's cutting

until the uncut flesh on his arm is barely visible.

She's falling

and she's falling

and she's falling

But he catches her

and prevents her from disappearing entirely.

He's falling

and he's falling

and he's falling

But she catches him

and keeps him tied to her,

to this life.

He tells her he'll always love her,

but she's now so small she looks in danger of just floating away.

She tells him she'll always love him,

but he's thinking of new ideas because just cutting the flesh isn't enough anymore.

When she faints due to lack of sustenance,

he nurses her back to relative health.

He holds her close,

then forces her to eat just enough to stay alive.

He wants to force more food on her,

but he knows she'll just push him further away.

When he accidentally

(or so she hopes)

cuts too deep and feels fuzzy and about to disappear,

She finds him,

and she heals him as best she can.

And eventually it works,

he's no longer in between life and death,

at least until next time.

But all the while she's healing and helping him,

she's losing more of herself.

And all the while he's trying to fix her,

he's becoming less of himself.

Her meals get smaller and his cuts get deeper.

And both know they have to stop their dangerous games,

before one or the other fades away forever.

But both are addicted to their pain.

She finds solace in an empty stomach,

he finds peace in the blade across his arm.

And both want the other to stop,

but know that they can't and won't.

For as long as his Rose hurts inside,

Scorpius marks himself on the outside.

And as long as Scorpius hurts himself on the outside,

Rose hurts herself from the inside.

It's a vicious circle,

and these are deadly games.

But neither can stop.

Every now and then,

they have good days:

Rose decides that maybe,

just maybe,

eating more than a quarter of her meal might be okay,

just for today.

Scorpius decides to be strong like Rose was today

and so he doesn't let himself cut.

But later,

Rose realises what she's done

and she's disgusted.

She's been refusing food for a reason.

So she purges,

then collapses in the bathroom.

And somehow,

Scorpius finds her.

And he heals her as much as she'll allow him to,

then he holds her close

and asks her why she's doing this.

And she tells him she just wants to be beautiful.

And though he knows she'll never believe it,

he still tells her she's already beautiful

and always was.

And she sighs and turns away,

because she knows she's hurting him

and she hates hurting him.

And eventually,

he leaves her for a short while,

then picks his blade up again.

And as she waits for his return,

she knows exactly what he's doing.

But she can't run and stop him and tell him it will all be okay,

because she's too weak to move right now.

She'd give anything to help him,

to save him,

He'd give anything to help her,

to save her,

But how do you save someone who doesn't want to be saved?